


The Glittering Of Shattered Hearts

by Jen425



Category: Super Sentai Series, Tokusatsu, 魔進戦隊キラメイジャー | Mashin Sentai Kiramager
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Torture, Juru-centric, Someone get these kids away rom me before I break them, Team as Family, Trauma, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23526169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: Juru lost his imagination, his creativity.It was… only partially the fault of the monster.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 38





	The Glittering Of Shattered Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I had a plunny. I wrote it.

It goes like this: something broke the unspoken rules and Something was not returned. Someone was hurt and no one could fix it. Someone was alone in a team where alone shouldn’t be allowed and made what choices he could on their way out.

Someone broke the unspoken rules and things only got worse from there.

  
  
  


“Atsuta hasn’t picked up his notebook since he came back to school.”

“It’s really weird.”

“And Hayami Sena of all people keeps checking up on him?”

“He doesn’t even come to school every day, anymore.”

  
  
  


If he stares at his sketchbook for even five minutes more, Juru swears he’s gonna ruin it with his tears or rip it to pieces or turn the red colored pencil in his other hand towards himself instead of the blank page, so instead he clutches it to his chest and curls onto his side. It’s an odd sensation, lacking something so intrinsic that it feels as though your basic functions are out of your understanding or control.

That maybe he’d been right, at the very beginning, when he could never have imagined himself nearly as sparkling as the others.

Maybe that’s why it had been ripped from him and he’d let his light given form be ripped in half so they could grab all of the other victims’. Because he didn’t deserve it.

(Maybe he was always useless except for creativity sometimes stronger than his common sense and it’s finally costing him, he wonders.)

(Maybe if he’d had more creativity and imagination at all, he wouldn’t have ever been in the situation that cost him all of it.)

But alone is the only place he can let himself cry.

He doesn’t have the insparkleration to fight properly with his team, but the least he can do is worry them less.

  
  
  


“Have you noticed?”

“Kiramai Red hasn’t fought at all, these past few weeks.”

“I thought I saw him fighting but he just went down.”

“Do you think he might be dying?”

“Do you think he might be dead?”

  
  
  


Tametomo kicks the wall, growling. Sayo and Shiguru had to run back to their jobs after this most recent fight, but Sena is there to watch him.

“I fucking hate this,” he growls. “We’re just fighting with borrowed time, at this point.”

Sena’s smile is sad as she grabs his arm.

“Come on,” she says. “We both know that’s not why you’re upset.”

Tametomo refuses to meet her gaze because he knows that he’ll break if he does.

Sometimes Juru still drags himself to strategy meetings, once to a battle. His face is sunken. His eyes don’t sparkle.

“He sacrificed his soul for others,” Tametomo manages to say. “After everything he went through… It’s not fair.”

Now instead of endearingly cute in his babyface and big eyes, seeing Juru is like a personal injury, thin and colorless and small.

All because he’d sacrificed himself twice over and none of them had been able to stop it.

Tametomo hadn’t been able to…

(His biggest frustration: it should have been him.)

  
  
  


“Do you think the Kiramagers are losing?”

“What? No! Sentai have protected our world for decades!”

“But their Red is still gone.”

“Has a Red ever been down this long, before?”

  
  
  


Sena tries to check in on Juru at least twice a week. Because even if it hurts her, he’s hurting far more and he deserves to know that their team is there for him. The others do, some, but she’s the least of a presence.

His shoulders slump. His hair and his skin look nearly greyscale. He smiles when he sees her and it doesn’t quite meet his dull eyes.

She drags him from the end of school rush and to a nice park, one with a grassy hill and a view and still some amount of privacy.

“How are you doing?” She asks, even though she knows the answer. Juru doesn’t respond, merely curling in on himself further. Sena gently takes his hand, noting the now-familiar flinch. “I figured.”

Juru pulls himself towards her and just kind of… collapses against her. He’s shaking, but he won’t look her in the eyes, will promise that he really is fine, it’s just a difficult adjustment, if she tries to ask later. He’s so sorry for worrying her.

It’s a million kinds of wrong that this has become familiar.

  
  
  


“Did the mecha just… break?”

“We should find shelter.”

“I’m scared.”

  
  
  


“I don’t think it was just the monster’s powers,” Sayo murmurs to Shiguru as they look at the others. Friends and allies they might be, but adults they really aren’t, and she can be an airhead but this is…

Well, this is complicated.

“Heroes don’t come back from capture without scars,” Shiguru agrees. “He’s using it as an excuse as much as a reality… but it doesn’t change the fact that he is hurt.”

Sayo sighs. Before two and a half months ago, she’d never realized how young her leader really was, his uniform now looking a size too big. His body almost greyscale. His smile is small and nervous and slightly forced instead of brightly excited.

She knows he’s hurt, but this isn’t exactly her area of expertise.

  
  
  


“Hey, Fire.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe… maybe you need to pick a new partner.”

“He doesn’t sparkle anymore, after all.”

  
  
  


Tametomo is the one with both the boldness and the audacity to visit Juru at home, and he’s the one who catches Juru’s wrist as he waits for lost inspiration to hit him.

“What are you thinking?” He asks, and Juru… he…

“Nothing, of course,” he says. He’s smiling, though. Tametomo had caught him crying once. He just… “I… I just want to help.”

Tametomo just slowly lowers his hand, locking his eyes with Juru’s in a way that he can’t look away, and Juru can’t help the tiny whimper at it. He can’t look away, he…

“Hey,” Tametomo says, voice clear and commanding but still soft. “We’re gonna be okay, got it? And… and so are you.”

Juru blinks. What…

“You were chosen for your imagination, right?” Tametomo asks. “And your creativity?”

Juru nods. Yeah, but…

“But they’re gone,” he says. “I don’t…”

Tametomo just laughs.

“You’re so strong that you completely reformed our partners,” he says. “Just imagine… your own creativity.”

Juru’s eyes widen as their changers beep. Tametomo sighs, finally letting go of Juru.

“Duty calls,” he says. “Doesn’t it?”

Juru holds a colored pencil and his sketchbook in his lap and tries to remember what it was like to be inspired.

  
  
  


“Now would be a really good time to have a new trick up our sleeve.”

“Everyone! I have an idea!”

“No way…”

“…”

“…Juru?”

  
  
  


The young Red’s step still isn’t as bouncy as it was, Shiguru can see. His smile is a bit less sincere.

But Shiguru has to admit that he deserves his hero’s return.

  
  
  


(It goes like this: the pain will never go away, but he sparkles stronger than any evil could ever dream of.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!


End file.
